Lumber
by hmweasley
Summary: Scorpius wants to plan the perfect date for Albus on Valentine's Day, but there aren't many options when they're confined to the castle. Then he stumbles upon the Room of Requirement.


Scorpius paced the corridors of Hogwarts, agonizing over the unremarkable ideas he could come up with. He had been trying to think of the perfect Valentine's Day date for weeks, yet nothing felt good enough. There would have been a variety of options if they were allowed to leave the castle, but they'd sworn off rule-breaking (generally) since their ill-advised excursions into the past.

But there were few places in the castle where one could be guaranteed alone time, and bribing their roommates to stay out of the dormitory for the evening wouldn't cut it for a romantic date. As hard as the house elves worked, that place still held a slight odor that Scorpius didn't think could ever be erased from the walls.

He'd lost track of where he was or how many times he'd walked past the same spot when a door appeared to his right. He looked up, orienting himself. The tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy to his left told him he was on the seventh floor, but he was certain that the door had never been there before. He took a step closer, his heart soaring as he fit the puzzle pieces together.

Somehow, he'd found the Room of Requirement by accident. He'd heard stories about it over the years—mostly from Albus and his (reluctant) dad—but he'd never expected to find it. No one who had seen it was eager to provide its location, and Scorpius could understand why. If the rumours were true, this room could grant him anything except that which violated the laws of magic.

He laughed out loud as he realized that the solution to his date problem really had appeared out of nowhere when he needed it most. It was times like these when he had to take a moment to appreciate how brilliant Hogwarts was, despite some of the more questionable parts of the castle and the at times difficult students.

Tugging the door open, Scorpius was met with the most romantic-looking set up he could have dreamed up. There were plush cushions along a couch that looked perfect for snogging, but there was also a nice dinner table sitting in front of a fireplace. There wasn't food, of course, as the room couldn't provide that much, but it was far better than anything Scorpius could find elsewhere in the castle.

Bobbing on his toes as he took it in, Scorpius let his plans for Valentine's Day fall into place.

* * *

Albus grumbled as he lumbered after Scorpius up another flight of stairs, tugging on the collar of the dress robes Scorpius had convinced him to wear. It was the first time he'd put them on since Victoire and Teddy's wedding, and he'd been vocally hoping that was the last time they'd need to be pulled out of his trunk.

"We weren't supposed to do anything for Valentine's Day," Albus reminded him. "We said we didn't want to bother the other with planning anything. Now I feel like a jerk."

"You shouldn't," Scorpius said, pausing to let Albus catch up with him.

He took his boyfriend's hand in his, raising it to his lips to kiss the back of it. As they continued forward, he didn't let go, swinging his and Albus' hands in time with their steps. Albus smirked as they went.

"You're right that we agreed not to do anything," Scorpius said. "I couldn't help myself. That's on me, not you."

Albus rolled his eyes, but his smirk was threatening to become a full-fledged smile.

"How are we going to have a romantic date anyway?" he asked as they continued walking. "Are we heading for the Astronomy Tower?"

Scorpius' nose wrinkled in distaste.

"Of course not," he said. "There'll be lots of couples there, especially today, and it's still too cold to be outside in the evening. They'll all catch pneumonia, and half of them will try to wait it out on their own because they don't want to fess up to Madam Pomfrey."

He shivered at the thought of it, prompting Albus to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

"Where are we going then?" Albus asked.

They reached the seventh floor corridor that housed the Barnabas the Barmy tapestry. Scorpius threw out his arms as if he was presenting something far greater than a stone wall, as if he was even if Albus didn't know it yet.

"We're having our date against a wall?" Albus asked. "Aren't we near the Gryffindor common room? Are we going to have James bothering us in the middle of our date?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes.

"No, because we're not having our date in the corridor. The Room of Requirement is here. I found it by accident."

Albus' face lit up.

"Are you serious? We never find anything cool in this castle, and you found it by _accident_? Without me?" He shifted his weight back and forth between his feet as if dancing. "How do we get in?"

Scorpius smiled and instructed him to think about their date as they paced back and forth in front of the wall. Just like it had every time Scorpius tested it out, the door appeared. The gasp that escaped Albus at the sight was enough for Scorpius to already declare the date a success.

Albus bounded inside, leaving his boyfriend to scramble after him before the door disappeared.

"Scorpius, look at this!" Albus exclaimed as if Scorpius hadn't carefully decided every detail of the room in the days leading up to the date. "Chocolate!?" Albus exclaimed, picking up the sweets from the table in front of the fire. "How is there food in here? I thought food couldn't be conquered with magic?"

"It can't," Scorpius said, rolling his eyes as Albus dug into the chocolate and hummed in approval. "I brought food earlier and stored it in here. That apparently works, even when the room changes. Albus, stop eating the chocolate! We haven't had dinner yet."

Albus dropped the chocolate as Scorpius swatted at his hands.

"But it's so good!" he whined. "You bought my favorite kind."

"That was on purpose," Scorpius said flatly. He'd gone through the effort of mail ordering Albus' favorite caramel-filled chocolates from a small sweet shop in Diagon Alley. "It's part of your Valentine's Day gift, but you can't eat the rest until after dinner. The house elves put a lot of work into this food."

Albus snorted.

"So, there's one part of this whole thing that you didn't do yourself?"

Scorpius pouted as they sat down at the table that was laden with Albus' favourite meal of a full roast. Albus didn't waste any time piling potatoes onto his plate.

"I thought about it," he admitted, "but you know I can't cook. Baking, that's a breeze, but cooking… There's always so much fire."

"Well, it looks delicious anyway," Albus said. "Thank you, Scorpius."

He leaned across the table to kiss Scorpius on the cheek, leaving Scorpius beaming as he pulled away.

"Dig in then," he said, motioning at the roast between them. "The sooner we get through that, the sooner you can have your chocolate."

Albus didn't waste any time before digging into the food.

* * *

 **Prompts:**

 **HPFC**

Favourite Character Boot Camp: Scorpius Malfoy - lumber

 **Hogwarts Challenges and Assignments**

Seasonal - Days of the Year: National Chocolate Day - write about someone enjoying chocolate

Word count: 1,195


End file.
